A day after the RBI put in public domain a draft scheme of merger of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) with subsidiary of Singapore-based DBS, public sector banks' officer union AIBOC on Wednesday said the amalgamation is not in the national interest and demanded the consolidation with any PSB. The proposed amalgamation of the cash-strapped LVB with DBS Bank India seems to be a ploy to provide entry of foreign banks into the country in a big way, All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) president Sunil Kumar said. The Indian banking sector provides huge opportunity for growth, so the foreign banks have been looking at inorganic route to expand their presence for long, he said.
Banks have raised concerns over the new international trade settlement in rupee, fearing that facilitation of such a mechanism could result in them facing the ire of economic sanctions by the West, people aware of the matter said. Large banks with overseas operations have sought clarity and assurance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that they will not be targeted with sanctions for facilitating rupee trade with a sanction-hit country such as Russia. The present payment mechanism is a shift from earlier such arrangements, like the one with sanction-hit Iran, which involved banks facilitating settlement of international trade that did not have business in the sanctioned nation.
While Gupta, 60, can rightfully bask in the glory he has achieved for his bank in the subcontinent, his peers in foreign banks will have to revisit their India play, especially the local incorporation model, says Raghu Mohan.
Employees across segments, including those involved in specialised jobs such as technology, compliance and risk management, have started leaving the bank fold in hordes, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Institutional investments in real estate may fall 20 per cent to $4 billion during this calendar year because of a higher inflow of funds in 2020, according to property consultant JLL India. During the January-September period, the institutional investment rose to $2,977 million from $1,534 million in the year-ago period. "Unless some large portfolio deals are not inked at the end of the year, annual investments are expected to be in the $3.8-4 billion range in 2021," JLL said in a statement. Institutional investments managed to cross the $5 billion mark in 2020 due to large portfolio deals worth $3.2 billion during the last quarter of the year.
Over 8.5 lakh employees, majorly from public sector banks (PSBs), will get a 15 per cent hike in pay, with the conclusion of the 11th Bipartite Wage Negotiations on Wednesday. After three years of intense negotiations, the UFBU, which represents four bank officer associations and five workman unions, and the IBA on July 22 entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for an annual wage hike of 15 per cent.
Companies owned by fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi have allegedly siphoned off over Rs 6,344.96 crore from the Punjab National Bank (PNB) using fraudulent letters of undertaking and foreign letters of credit, a CBI investigation into the scam has detected. The findings were submitted by the CBI in a supplementary chargesheet filed before a special court in Mumbai last week, where the agency said the PNB was conned by its employees who were allegedly hand in gloves with Choksi and his company executives and who facilitated the scam as part of a criminal conspiracy. The PNB officials at the bank's Brady House branch in Mumbai issued 165 letters of undertaking (LoUs) and 58 foreign letters of credit (FLCs) during March-April 2017, against which 311 bills were discounted.
Initial public offering (IPO)-bound Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India's assets under management (AUM) increased to Rs 38 trillion as of September 2021, compared with Rs 37 trillion as of March 2021, said sources in the know. Its AUM is almost 3x the AUM of all the private life insurers in the country and over 15x more than the AUM of the second largest life insurer, SBI Life, as of September 2021. SBI Life's AUM was approximately Rs 2.4 trillion as of September 2021, said sources.
The branch managers have come out of their glass cabins and the sellers' market has transformed into a buyers' market, but there is no end to the harassment of customers, asserts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
One thing is for sure: It smacks of the regulator's lack of confidence in the bank's board, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'On the evening of the 17th, the RBI said the bank was put on moratorium.' 'Within an hour, the RBI said it would be merged with DBS.' 'How did DBS come to know within an hour that LVB was in trouble?' 'It means, what happened was match-fixing.'
The gross non-performing assets of banks may rise to 13.5 per cent by September 2021, from 7.5 per cent in September 2020, under the baseline scenario, according to Financial Stability Report (FSR) released by the Reserve Bank of India.
As many as 8.5 lakh bank employees are set to benefit from the wage hike, which will be effective from November 2017.
The sale will be quicker if an Indian private bank buys it; it will take longer for regulatory clearances if a foreign bank or an NBFC buys it, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The plan was to expand further, add more branches and also eventually become the third bank in India to start a wholly owned subsidiary after Singapore's DBS Bank and State Bank of Mauritius, but those plans never materialised due to lack of scale and rising non-performing assets in the country.
Tamil Nadu-based Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) with pre-independence lineage on Friday lost its identity after its merger with the Indian subsidiary of Singapore's DBS Bank. The debt-ridden 94-year old old bank's fate was sealed with Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approving Scheme of Amalagamation on Wednesday.
Replying to a query in Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said there was no delay by the Centre in taking action after identification of fraud by the State Bank of India following the forensic report from Ernst & Young.
A career Citibanker, 'Selva' came into the spotlight as the person who rewired the financial behemoth's Indian retail operations.
Banking operations across the country may be impacted on Thursday as some bank unions would be joining the one-day nationwide strike called by central trade unions. Ten central trade unions, except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, will observe the nationwide general strike to protest against various policies of the central government. Many lenders, including IDBI Bank and Bank of Maharashtra, in regulatory filings on Wednesday said their normal working could be affected at the branches and offices.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has deferred the diktat requiring foreign investors to disclose their mobile number, email addresses and income details to depositories, a move believed to be aimed at curbing practices such as round tripping and money laundering. "Based on the representations received from MIIs (market infrastructure institutions), Sebi has decided to extend the deadline for making 6-KYC attributes mandatory for new accounts opened by 1 month to July 1, 2021. "Participants are accordingly requested to take note of the above and ensure compliance," NSDL said in a note on Tuesday. The regulator is also meeting custodians this week to thrash out a solution and address investors' concerns.
Leaving behind the luxe life and dapper suits of foreign banks, Puri and his team at the upstart venture shared fizz drinks, wore a footwear brand popular among the middle class, shared a rat-infested space in a yet-to-be gentrified work space to plan and execute it.
In India, it is not easy to fight it out with the large banks which are nimble-footed and technology-savvy and are continuously innovating on the retail turf with newer products for customer acquisition.
Gross bad loans of banks may rise from 6.9 per cent in September 2021 to 8.1-9.5 per cent by September 2022 if the Omicron variant strikes the economy hard, as per the financial stability report of the Reserve Bank released on Wednesday. The report also said that the rising stress level in the retail loan portfolio of banks -- the mainstay of bank credit for many years now -- was led by home loans, which grew in double-digits so far this fiscal. While asset quality improved, with gross non-performing assets (GNPA) and net NPA (NNPA) ratios declining to 6.9 and 2.3 per cent, respectively, in September 2021, the slippage ratio inched up during the same period as private sector banks showed a higher rate of deterioration in asset quality, as per the report.
'Those who come from outside are surprised at the relatively small strength of the RBI supervisory cadre, relative to the needs of the country and the needs of the financial sector.'
'There will be partnerships between banks and fintech firms, but there will also be areas where they will be direct competitors.'
From real estate to metals, what Sitharaman's Budget has in store.
Asset quality of banks, which saw some improvement in the second half of 2020, is likely to worsen during the first six months of 2021, according to a survey. The findings are part of the 12th round of bankers' survey carried out by FICCI-IBA between July and December 2020. The survey was conducted on 20 banks, including public sector, private sector and foreign banks, representing about 59 per cent of the banking industry, as classified by asset size.
US auto major Ford Motor Co on Friday said it and India's Mahindra & Mahindra have decided to scrap their previously announced automotive joint venture and it will continue its independent operations in India as it is. The two companies determined that they will not complete a previously announced automotive joint venture between their respective companies. The decision follows the passing of the December 31, 2020 'longstop' or expiration date of a definitive agreement the organisations entered into in October 2019, Ford Motor Company said in a statement.
In the case of Iran, the lifting of sanctions has paved the way for direct relations.
Among the bank groups, under the baseline scenario, public sector banks' gross NPA ratios may increase to 13.2 per cent by September 2020 from 12.7 per cent in September 2019.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday gave banks time till October 31 to comply with its guidelines on current account and overdraft facilities. The central bank indicated that it was in no mood to change the proposed rules, but would only allow for stretching the timeline for smoother implementation. The initial deadline had ended on July 31, leading to thousands of current accounts being closed or frozen by banks. Lenders had requested the RBI for some more time to resolve the operational issues in implementing the provisions of the August 2020 circular in letter and spirit.
'Spends are likely to increase from the current levels because recovery is yet to fully be over.'
Penalty must act as a deterrent. If it is too low, it could encourage the regulated entities to lap up penalty instead of complying with the norms, suggests Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
On Wednesday, the Modi sarkar placed a list of names of 627 Indian account holders in HSBC bank, Geneva in the black money case before the Supreme Court. While on the campaign trail, bringing back black money stashed away in foreign banks was one of the biggest election promises made by Narendra Modi. Rediff.com takes a look at some of the prime minister's tall assurances.
The non-food component in the price basket will continue to keep inflation at a high level and result in a "long pause" in interest rates, a foreign bank said on Wednesday. The central bank is likely to pare the pandemic-driven emergency response as well, the report by Singaporean lender DBS said. It can be noted that the high inflation driven by the food prices has forced the RBI to go for a status quo in rates for the three consecutive reviews of the bi-monthly policy meetings, even as growth continues to be in the negative territory.
He was convicted on charges of stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Soon after arguments on custodial interrogation got over, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who was appearing for Chidambaram, sought permission from special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar that his client be allowed to speak.
If Sebi and RBI remain quiet about this brazenly illegal activity, will someone in the finance ministry or the NITI Aayog take a closer look, asks Debashis Basu.
Burman did not file the details of foreign account on the ground that he did not have its statements.
Historically, the RBI has tried to keep the crooks at bay by issuing a circular a day. What it needs is more onsite supervision. Merely checking high-frequency data with the help of technology is insufficient, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances